KRUPSKAYA AND LENIN TO LENIN’S MOTHER

Written:Written December 20, 1898 Sent from Shushenskoye to PodolskPublished:First published in 1929 in the JournalProletarskaya RevolyutsiyaNo. 5.

      Printed from 
 the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 37,

      pages212-213.Translated:The Late George H. HannaTranscription\Markup:D. MorosPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.

December 20

DearMaria Alexandrovna,

TodayVolodya has unexpectedly gone out shooting so I
am writing. Recently the frost here has been as much as
20° below zero, but today it is only two and a half degrees
below and Volodya was tempted to go out with his gun,
especially as the Shushenskoye sportsmen have a theory
that this is the best time to go after grouse; the birds have
not eaten during the heavy frosts and are now so busy eating
that they do not see a man approaching. Volodya has taken
somebody else’s gun because he has broken his own; the
barrel proved to be made of cast iron and cracked merely
from being dropped on the ice. We sent the gun to
Minusinsk but the gunsmith there refused to repair it. And so we
shall have to buy another. We have heard that a very good
double-barreled gun is for sale in Minusinsk and Volodya
is thinking of acquiring it.

Weare now busy preparing for a trip to Minusinsk.
Actually our preparations boil down to Volodya pinning a
sheet of paper to the wall and writing down everything we
have to buy in town. Mother is not going with us—first she
said “no” because the road was bad, and now she says it is
too cold. We are going on Christmas Eve and shall return
on the first or second, so Volodya’s next letter will be from
Minusinsk. I do not know whether Volodya told you that
Kurnatovsky and the Lepeshinskys are coming to Minusinsk
for Christmas, and that they intend to skate, play chess, sing,
argue, etc. It looks as though we shall have a good time.

Whenthe “markets” are finished there is a plan to settle
down to the study of languages in general and German in
particular. Volodya is ordering Pavlovsky’s
Russian-German Dictionary from the warehouse and asks Anyuta to
get hold of Turgenev in German and a decent German grammar.I have heard that one of the best German grammars
is that of F. Fiedler but I do not know for sure.

Oh,by the way, we suspect that our surmise
aboutZhizn[2]was incorrect. If so, it is not, of course, worth
while subscribing to it.

Wehave received only one letter from Manyasha. Why
doesn’t she write? Perhaps her letters do not reach us—she
should register them. Volodya has come home and is making
a fuss about my staying indoors and not going skating. So I
shall close now. “Happy New Year!” Kisses for you and
Anyuta, regards to D.I. and
M.T.[1]Mother sends best
regards to all. There is nothing to write about at the moment,
but there may be after Minusinsk. Again, kisses,

Yours,Nadya

Iadd my New Year’s greetings.

Withregard to the translation of Turgenev—I should
think it would be best to enquire at Wolfe’s and at the same
time to get a catalogue ofReclam[3]editions. It does not
matter to us which of Turgenev’s books you get, the only
thing is that the translation must be a good one. We should
like a German grammar that is as complete as possible,
especially as regards syntax. It would probably be better
if it were in German. Perhaps we should go over to Wolfe
altogether for ordering books and for information.
Kalmykova’s warehouse is not very forthcoming with
information; I asked them to get me a reprint of N. Karyshev’s
article “Material on the Russian National Economy” from
the Second Issue of thesecondpart ofIzvestiya
Moskovskogo selskokhozyaistvennogo institutafor 1898, but they
refused to fulfil my request or even send me the address
ofIzvestiya. Can you get it?

Allthe best,V. U.

[1]DmitryIlyich Ulyanov and Mark Timofeyevich Yelizarov.—Ed.

[2]Zhizn(Life)—a literary, scientific and political journal   published
in St. Petersburg from 1897 to 1901. In April 1902 the publication
of the journal was again started abroad by the Social-Democratic
groupZhizn(V. D. Bonch-Bruyevieh, V. A. Posse, V. M.
Velichkina, G. A. and M. A. Kuklin, and others).

Thegroup ceased to exist in December 1902 and the publishing
office was closed down.

[3]Leninhere refers to the German firm ofReclamthat published
several thousand  booklets  on   literature  (Universal Bibliothek)
at   20  pfennigs each.